YouTube's Woes Worsen

At this point, we've pretty much all heard about the $1 billion lawsuit Viacom has launched against YouTube over alleged copyright infringements. But that is just one component of an assault from several media fronts.

In addition to that, two movie studios, Twentieth Century Fox, and more recently, Magnolia Pictures, have subpoenaed YouTube's parent company Google to identify users who posted pirated content from their studios. Fox went after YouTube back in January for illegal uploads of "24" and "The Simpsons."

NBC Universal also sent a six-page letter to YouTube expressing its disgruntlement over bootleg videos being uploaded to the site. NBC Universal played a large part in making YouTube so popular, with the now-famous "Lazy Sunday," and even more legendary "Dick in a Box," which has now been viewed over 18,000, 000 times.

YouTube's current policy towards piracy is that they will take unauthorized material down - if and when they are notified, and once they are able to locate all of said material.

Most media companies think that this policy is crap - and they're right. They shouldn't have to go through the process of legally notifying YouTube every time one of YouTube's users acts irresponsibly. What happened to the idea of "responsible host?" If someone behaves poorly in your house, you should be the one to deal with them. Other companies shouldn't have to log onto YouTube and waste countless man-hours scouring for pirated content.

YouTube needs to set up filters that can immediately detect pirated video and, ideally, prevent the offending party from being able to upload it in the first place. Or at the very least they need to be more proactive about policing themselves.

These media companies incur huge expenses in developing their movies and shows, and they're entitled to reap the full benefit of the revenues, since they are obviously the ones who put all the effort into creating the content in the first place.

These lawsuits and subpoenas by the media companies are probably designed mostly to get YouTube and its parent company to start taking these copyright issues more seriously and take action immediately. Many of these companies would probably like to make deals with Google and YouTube at some point, because the site provides valuable exposure - it's just a matter of money.

Google is obviously not going to take this lying down. Few people think that Google will actually end up paying $1 billion to Viacom. This will likely just be Viacom's way of lighting a fire under Google's ass to work out a distribution deal that both companies can live with.

It is probably a smart move on Viacom's part to nip this in the bud - because the longer it allows this behavior to carry on, the harder it will be to undo it.